


JAZZ CRIMINALS

by Esmenet



Category: Kyounetsu no Kisetsu | The Warped Ones (1960)
Genre: Art, Chromatic Source, Female Character of Color, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Jazz - Freeform, Music, POV Character of Color, Painting, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-12
Updated: 2012-04-12
Packaged: 2017-11-03 12:14:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esmenet/pseuds/Esmenet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story told in weekends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	JAZZ CRIMINALS

**Author's Note:**

> If you are unfamiliar with the film, I've written a basic explanation of it [here](http://esmenet.dreamwidth.org/100191.html#cutid1).
> 
> The title is taken and modified from a Joshua Redman song.

He ruined her life. Why can't he just stay out of it?  
  
Sometimes Fumiko feels like she runs into him around every street corner. He's always skipping around, dancing to some jazz tune in his head, yelling at people for no reason. He yells at her, too—no real words, just noises. After three days of this, she turns around and _shrieks_ at him.  
  
He grins, lazy and approving.  
  
"Bye," he says, and skips off. He doesn't come back.  
  
-  
  
Makoto and Fumiko go out for tea that Saturday, just like always. They talk about art and politics, and carefully avoid the topics of nameless men, break-ins, and attempted murder. It's nice. Fumiko lingers at the table after Makoto leaves, letting the atmosphere sink in just a little longer. They haven't been to this teahouse before, but it's clean and respectable and there's no music at all. She lets herself relax.  
  
"Hey," a familiar voice says, and Fumiko thinks _oh no_. "That's you, isn't it? Artist girl."  
  
The girl slides into Makoto's abandoned chair and smiles too brightly at Fumiko, like they'd last seen each other in a nice gallery rather than an abortion clinic. "Looks like you two didn't break up after all. Akira owes me money."  
  
"Why are you here?" Fumiko asks, burying her face in her hands. Leave me alone. All she wants, after everything, is for the world to go away and leave her with her nice ordinary fiance, her nice organized studio, her nice quiet life against which to paint chaos.  
  
She hasn't painted in weeks.  
  
The girl shrugs, rescuing a falling shoulder strap. "I recognized you."  
  
"You followed me?" Just what she needs, another one.  
  
"Just across the room. You looked bored." Someone outside waves, and she stands up. On the way out, she catches herself on the doorframe, her hair like a splash of ink against the wall. "Ah! By the way, I'm Yuki. Bye-bye!"  
  
-  
  
So that's how she meets Yuki, who manages to reappear every Saturday after that, no matter where Fumiko and Makoto go for tea. Fumiko's not sure she likes Yuki, and she knows Yuki doesn't like her. Some of the things Yuki says to her...you don't say those kinds of things to people you like. Then again, it seems Yuki doesn't like anyone. She once spent half an hour laughing to Fumiko about how Akira almost got run over by a train.  
  
...Then again, that was Akira, who is either a natural disaster or living performance art and quite possibly both.  
  
This Saturday Makoto is in Kyoto on business, so Fumiko stays home and stares at blank canvas. There is something taking shape in her head, something new, but she's hesitant to start putting down brushstrokes. At this stage, one wrong stroke could make the whole idea crash and burn.  
  
It's almost a relief to hear the pounding on her door.  
  
Apparently, Yuki knocks on doors like she's trying to break them down. Or maybe she's just particularly impatient today. "Come on," she says urgently. "I want to show you something."  
  
Fumiko briefly considers the wisdom of this. Considering Yuki's personality, there probably isn't any.  
  
"All right, let's go," she says, and grabs her purse.  
  
Yuki drags her to a big graveyard on the edge of town. "Here!" she says. "Over here, this one. It's Masaru."  
  
Yuki's grip on Fumiko's wrist is too tight, and she can feel the bruises forming. "Who's Masaru?"  
  
"My old boyfriend. He joined the yakuza, got in a lot of fights. He killed one of the bosses, but the guards got him," she says, speaking fast and quiet. "Come on," she says, and pulls Fumiko down to sit on the grass. "You met him once, I think. In the car that one time, at the beach. He joined a gang a few weeks after."  
  
Yes, she remembers. He'd seemed even scarier than Akira, at the time.  
  
"Akira kept telling him fighting was stupid."  
  
Akira, who'd gone after her with a broken bottle when she turned off his music.  
  
"I cried for three days afterwards, you know?"  
  
She hadn't known, and wouldn't have cared.  
  
"I really loved him," Yuki says, even more quietly than before. She stares at her hands, and lets Fumiko's wrist slide out of her grasp.  
  
"I know," Fumiko tells her.  
  
-  
  
Makoto is still in Kyoto. Fumiko can't stand the idea of another day spent sitting and waiting for her elusive painting to take shape in her head, so she takes a cab downtown and walks around for a few hours. The streets are full of people talking, and their words fall into her mind like drops of ink into a glass of water. "—won't see him for another year, of course—" "—the new baby—" "—lucky if she doesn't cancel the whole thing." "Well, with all this _jazz_ nonsense going around—"  
  
That sentence sparks something: jazz as some kind of disease sweeping though city streets, like a bad case of flu. Newspaper headlines: 20% OF POPULATION LAID UP WITH BAD CASE OF JAZZ and TRUMPETS: CAUSE OF INFECTION? or BREAKTHROUGH ON 'JAZZ' EPIDEMIC, SAY SCIENTISTS. She likes it. Not easy to paint, but now she can't let go of the idea.  
  
That jazz club is only a few streets away, so she goes. Maybe Akira won't be there, and she can just listen to music and drink the afternoon away.  
  
Akira's not there, as a matter of fact. Almost no one is; the club is almost empty. She enjoys the solitude for a while, but today's music is more on the lounge side ( _play some real jazz_ , shouts the Akira in her mind) and fails to occupy her thoughts. Maybe she should go walk around some more, looking for inspiration in the lines of arms and hands and buildings after words and music have failed her.  
  
She glances towards the door, but her eyes settle elsewhere before she can leave.  
  
"Good afternoon, Mr Gill," she says in English. It's almost good to see him. They used to talk, in the long-stretched days she spent waiting here to confront Akira, about music and art and whatever came to mind. "How are things going?"  
  
"Not bad. My sister just shipped me five records from her friend in New Orleans." He doesn't mention how much happier they're going to make Akira, which she appreciates. "What about you?"  
  
"I'm in the idea stage right now. Nothing's solid yet, but I've been thinking about adding some kind of jazz element..."  
  
They talk for a long while about nothing very important, and though Fumiko comes away with no new inspiration, she doesn't consider the time wasted.  
  
-  
  
Shinji visits the next day. "You haven't been to any of our parties," he says. "What's going on?"  
  
Fumiko waves a hand carelessly, including her still-blank canvas in the movement. "Oh, you know. Waiting for inspiration."  
  
"Can't you wait for it in company?"  
  
"I'd rather not, actually. It's at the delicate stage."  
  
"Oh, well," he says, shrugging. "Say, can you bring that model with you next time? I wanted to sketch him."  
  
"I haven't seen him for a while," Fumiko tells him, trying hard for the right balance of honesty and deflection.  
  
"Pity. He was perfect, you know? The very image of modern man."  
  
 _No, he's not,_ she thinks. There's no such thing as 'modern man'. And even if there were, Akira would definitely not be it. He's not even a man, really; most of the time he still acts like he's ten years old.  
  
"Well, feel free to drop by whenever you finish painting."  
  
"Of course." She's not going to.  
  
-  
  
When Makoto comes back, he kisses her and hands her an envelope full with pictures of factories. Not at all what his story was on, but honestly Fumiko doesn't care. She spreads them out over the dining table, marveling at all the cogs and wheels and giant steelworks that dwarf their human workers.  
  
"You said you'd gotten stuck, so I thought some new images might help."  
  
"Thank you," she says absently. There is something here, it's just not quite hitting the right note—  
  
Notes. Music.  
  
Oh. _Yes_.  
  
The title is there, in her head— _The Jazz Machine_ —and she can feel the brushstrokes about to follow.


End file.
